


What Happens in Vegas...Usually Follows You Home

by joycelyn_solo



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Las Vegas Wedding, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27906538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joycelyn_solo/pseuds/joycelyn_solo
Summary: Getting plastered last night had certainly not been her intention when she’d gone out to dinner with her mother, especially not when a group of her mother’s coworkers unexpectedly joined them. In fact, Felicity had still been nursing her first drink by the time her mother was called away…but the night got decidedly more fuzzy after that...An intoxicated night in Vegas leads to a different take on Arrow: Season One.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 30
Kudos: 174





	1. Chapter One

There was a reason Felicity Smoak avoided getting drunk. Not that she didn’t drink; she was a big fan, actually. As a member of the IT department for a Fortune 500 company, she often found that a glass of wine was the perfect reward for making it through the day without braining someone with their own keyboard. 

And there were a lot of someones who deserved to be brained by their keyboards at Queen Consolidated on a fairly regular basis. 

What Felicity didn’t like was being sick. No one did. But she’d hated her first hangover so much that she’d vowed as an underage freshman to never get drink that much again. And she’d kept that promise to herself for more than five years.

So why, she wondered through the pounding of her head, did she feel as bad as she did that first year at MIT when she was too young and too far from home to heed the warnings of her mother at her first frat party?

Getting plastered last night had certainly not been her intention when she’d gone out to dinner with her mother, especially not when a group of her mother’s coworkers unexpectedly joined them. In fact, Felicity had still been nursing her first drink by the time her mother was called away…but the night got decidedly more fuzzy after that.

It was fifty-fifty whether her mother would be proud of her for letting loose for the night or scold her for coming home so wasted she wasn’t actually sure how she’d gotten there. Not that the Vegas apartment was actually home for Felicity anymore. She was just visiting her mother for the weekend. 

Despite her headache, she forced her dry and scratchy eyes open and tried to focus on the blurry ceiling above. She’d apparently had the presence of mind in her inebriated state to take our her contacts, so that was nice. She had a tendency to fall asleep with them in when she was sober, which was part of why she preferred to wear her glasses.

Thinking of her glasses, she reached for them next to the bed and was confused when her hand flailed in the air rather than catching the edge of the old table her mother had rehabbed and wedged into her room to serve as her computer desk and worktable.

There wasn’t space for anything other than the bed and desk in her old room, barely a walkway and a spot at the foot of the bed for Felicity to access her small closet, so she should have been able to reach the table no matter what orientation she’d fallen onto the bed in her drunken stupor. She reached again, stretching her arm further and bracing her leg against the wall. 

Still unable to reach the table, she pushed a bit with her leg — and the wall groaned. 

Felicity froze, pulling her arm and leg back in, trying to convince herself that she had not heard what she’d heard.

Experimentally, she pushed the wall with her foot again. 

“Knock it off,” the wall grumbled.

Felicity bolted upright, rubbing her eyes hard and squinting to bring her surroundings into focus. 

She was in bed. But not her bed. In fact, it was the largest bed she’d ever seen outside of the penthouse suites she used to clean after school. 

And she wasn’t alone. 

She dared a glance at the other side of the bed, at the still-slumbering “wall.” 

Oh god, she thought. She’d spent the night with a stranger. 

She put her head in her hands, breathing slowly as she tried not to vomit over the realization that she’d broken another rule, this one about going home with some random guy. Though technically, she argued with herself, she hadn’t gone home with him. Just to his hotel room. 

Still, she reasoned back at herself. Random. Guy.

The internal battle seemed to abate the nausea and she took the opportunity to look around as best she could with her uncorrected vision — and then yelped in relief when she spotted her glasses on the gilded nightstand that had been just out of her reach.

She snagged her glasses, ignoring the glass of water that teetered in her haste, and finally got a look at her her surroundings. 

She was in a penthouse (mental pat on the back for rationalizing the giant bed’s location), and further concluded that she was at the Bellagio, taking in the casino’s seal embroidered into the silken case of a discarded pillow. 

Based on the opulence of the room, her bedmate was obviously a very important rando — but a rando just the same. 

Working up her courage, Felicity pulled the fluffy hotel robe she’d apparently slept in — and nothing else — closed over her chest and leaned to study the occupant on the opposite side of the bed. His head was buried under a pillow but a good chunk of him was bared to her as he’d apparently opted not to wear a bathrobe. 

Frankly, if she was going to break her self-imposed rules about one-night-stands, at least she’d picked a winner with his broad shoulders, tight abs and narrow hips. He sported a handful of tattoos and several scars — scars that would have been far more terrifying if her attention hadn’t been arrested by the thick gold band he wore on his left hand. 

Frack! she thought as her surprising evening of shame sunk to an entirely new low. She’d gone home with a very important and married rando.

Unbeknownst to Felicity, she’d said that last bit out loud — quite loudly, in fact — and managed to rouse her bed companion. He rolled toward her, pulling the pillow off to reveal a familiar face, one covered with sexy stubble and sporting even sexier bedhead and who may or may not have been the star of one of her more recent sexy dreams… 

“Mr Queen?” 

Billionaire playboy Oliver Queen, who’d only recently returned to Starling City after being lost and presumed dead for five years, blinked in surprise as recognition dawned in his piercing blue eyes. Despite bearing the name of her employing company, Felicity had never expected to meet the infamous Queen heir, even after his startling return from a deserted island, but had done so only a month ago when he arrived in the IT department of Queen Consolidated in search of technical support. 

Felicity hadn’t expected to see him again after recovering data from the bullet-riddled laptop of which he’d claimed questionable ownership, so she’d been a little surprised when he came back for help tracking down a man he’d insisted he’d known in high school. 

And she never would have predicted meeting him again in their current situation.

She clutched the robe even more tightly closed, twisting the plush waffle-knit in her fist.

“Felicity?” he asked, his speech slurred with sleep and confusion. “What’s goin’ on?”

“I didn’t know you were married,” Felicity answered quietly. 

He cocked a questioning eyebrow at her and she gestured toward the left handle he was currently scratching his stomach with, drawing her attention to his impressive abs. Now I know why they call them washboard, she thought. 

Oliver smiled at the compliment Felicity had unintentionally voiced.

“Oh frack,” she said and grabbed his pillow to hide her face in embarrassment.

“Uh, Felicity?” Oliver called, gently pulling the pillow away and holding onto her hand. He looked pointedly at the gaudy golden band on her own finger.

“It’s safe to say the marriage is a recent development.” 

“Double frack,” she said slowly, realization dawning as she stared at the unfamiliar jewelry that adorned her hand, proof that she’d succumbed to a Vegas cliche she’d always mocked. 

She tore her gaze away, locking eyes with Oliver, and asked, “What happened last night?”

>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<

Oliver Queen knew exactly what had happened last night. He had been stone sober and remembered every detail. 

But he couldn't tell Felicity that. 

After the debacle with Helena Bertinelli, he’d needed some time to clear his head away from Star City. So he’d come to Vegas, very publicly playing the role of the good son helping out his mother and step-father by entertaining clients of his family's company.

Not-so-publicly, he'd also used the opportunity to track down the supplier of a Starling City gun runner and another name on his father's list, a ledger he was using to clean up his city. 

He'd allowed the illusion of too much alcohol to mask his real mission as he'd led Queen Consolidated's expense-account happy Ōkami Corp reps from casino to casino in search of the next big party. Shortly after finding and dispensing with his intended target, he returned to his drunken charges and discovered that they'd made a friend — a beyond drunk and very vulnerable Felicity Smoak.

Oliver had met Felicity in the IT department at QC when he’d gone there for technical support involving one of his hunts as Starling City’s hooded vigilante. Discovering her in the casino had been unexpected, and maybe even a little suspicious, until he’d pieced her story together from her drunken rambles. She’d grown up in Vegas and was in town for the weekend to see her mother. She’d been out with friends and said friends thought she'd needed to "loosen up and get laid" so they'd given her a little push in that direction with a cocktail of party drugs they'd had on hand. 

The potent mix had robbed Felicity of any defense against the swarm of men vying for her attention. With some not entirely difficult manipulation of the situation, Oliver made sure that Felicity stayed close to him the rest of the night.

He'd originally intended to get Felicity safely away to her room, or booked into one if she didn’t have one, and only stay long enough to get her sobered. But Oliver found himself utterly charmed by her life story, which she proceeded to tell him in her stupor as his Japanese guests continued to rack up gambling losses they’d later write off as business expenses. 

He learned that Felicity had been raised by a single mother, the same one who'd abandoned her with the so-called friends, and earned her degrees in computer science out east because she couldn't bear the thought of living her entire life in the desert. She was Jewish, which was why she was even in Vegas for the weekend, celebrating an abbreviated Hanukah with her mother. She’d lived in Starling City for three years, in an okay-but-also-not-great apartment because she was saving up for a down payment and a mortgage. She was goal-oriented and probably more than a bit of a workaholic with no dating life to speak of, which was apparently the reason the "friend" had drugged her. 

Oliver wasn't sure when the idea to get married had come into play. It had started with an advertisement for one of the all night chapels for which Vegas was known. The ad had caught the attention of the QC guests and Oliver, playing to his reputation as the inebriated and care-free billionaire, allowed himself to be dragged along to watch an upcoming wedding at a nearby chapel.

It was Felicity, caught up in the packaged romance the “church” was selling, who first suggested that someone from their group should get married. Since Felicity was the only obvious bride, Oliver quickly dissuaded their other companions from volunteering to be her groom by taking the role himself. It wasn’t one of the better calculated decisions he’d made since his return to civilization but, as he watched Felicity walk with slow and deliberate steps down the aisle with her bridal party of Japanese businessmen, he couldn’t help but think that her technical skills would be an asset to his mission. Not to mention, he’d convinced himself by the time they got to the vows, getting married would help solve a lot of his problems, both as the hooded vigilante and as Oliver Queen.

An hour later, bid best wishes by their bridal party of QC clients, Oliver carried Felicity over the threshold of his penthouse suite, the marriage certificate in his pocket and cheap gold bands on their fingers. Not twenty minutes after that, he was holding his brides's hair as her body finally rejected the poisons she'd consumed that evening. 

With very little protest from the new Mrs. Queen, Oliver helped Felicity shower, wrapped her in a complimentary robe, and tucked her into the large bed. In a twisted bit of luck, she’d managed to lose both of her contacts while making her sacrifice to the porcelain deity. He found her glasses in her purse and placed them on the nightstand along with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin. Before he’d stripped down and crawled into the bed, Felicity was already fast asleep in the nest of down pillows he’d fashioned for her.

He stretched out on his side and smiled, allowing himself to be enamored by the sight of his sleeping bride and ignoring the regret he already felt at the decision he’d made on her behalf tonight.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two 

Oliver wasn’t sure what to expect Felicity’s reaction to be to their situation. Anger, most likely, maybe some tears. 

He definitely hadn’t been prepared for her to laugh. 

“I’m sorry,” she said at his quirked eyebrow. “I grew up here. We made fun of the drunk idiots who got caught up in the quickie weddings. And somehow I ended up being one of those idiots.”

The laughter continued until Felicity stopped suddenly, gave him a wide-eyed look, and turned to retch into the gold-plated bin he’d left next to her last night. 

Oliver moved quickly, gathering her hair from her face as he’d done only hours before. Since she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since then, it was a short session of dry heaving that had Oliver rubbing her back and offering her water when she fell back against the pillows. 

“Do all the drunk-weddings start out this way? It’s not exactly romantic,” She closed her eyes, fighting the next wave of nausea. On a sigh she whispered, “It was nice of you to hold my hair. I suppose that’s kind of romantic.”

With her eyes closed, she missed Oliver’s small smile. 

“I’ll order breakfast,” he decided aloud, tentatively stroking her hair and pushing a thick lock behind her ear. When she slowly opened one eye to peer at him, he explained, “I know it sounds like the last thing you want but, trust me, you’ll feel better if you eat something.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Dry heaving is the worst. Not that actual vomit is much better. It’s why I don’t usually drink. Well, I do. Wine mostly. I love a good red. But I try to avoid excess and the hangover, present evidence to the contrary. I have no idea what happened last night. And now I’m married. To Oliver Queen. Not that there’s anything wrong with you,” she quickly apologized, lest he be offended. “It’s just that…well, you’re you. And I’m me. We’re not exactly a match. And you’re my boss. Sort of. I mean, Walter’s my boss. But he’s your step-dad. And it’s your family’s company. And I’m gonna be so fired for marrying the boss’ step-son.”

“You’re not going to be fired,” Oliver tried to assure her but it just sent her on another rant.

“Only because you can’t fire me because everyone will assume I’m sleeping with you. Which makes sense. Since we’re married. And that’s what married people do. They’ll assume I’ve been sleeping with you all along, and that’s how I got my job at QC even though I’ve worked there for almost three years and you’ve been gone for five. And it’s not even that glamorous of a job and kind of beneath my qualifications but you have to start somewhere. Where I really want to be is Applied Sciences. But if I get that job, they’ll assume it’s only because I’m married to the boss. And sleeping with him. Oh God. We slept together last night and I don’t even remember it. Why don’t I remember anything from last night?”

Oliver swallowed the bile that rose in his own throat at her distress. Felicity didn’t deserve the situation he’d put her in, even though he’d convinced himself last night that it was a win-win for both of them. 

He was less sure in the light of day and resolved to put a stop to it before it went too far. He’d tell her nothing happened between them last night. He’d assure her that the Queen lawyers could easily annul the marriage before anyone even knew it had happened. 

“Neither of us was in our right mind last night, Felicity,” he admitted, absentmindedly rubbing her arm. “Why don’t you go freshen up? I’ll order that breakfast and we’ll talk everything out.”

She nodded and reluctantly pulled herself away from the comforting warmth of his caress and padded softly to the bathroom.

>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<

As Felicity splashed water on her face, she figured the food would take a few minutes and decided to shower. Since she only had last night’s cocktail dress to change back into, she wrapped herself in a fresh robe since Oliver had opted not to wear his. After she towel dried her hair, she noticed a complimentary toothbrush in cellophane and very cautiously brushed her teeth with a small squirt of Oliver’s designer toothpaste (who knew designer toothpaste was a thing?). By the time she stepped back out into the bedroom, she was pleasantly surprised to find two service trays already laid out on the straightened bedsheets.

While she’d been gone, Oliver had dressed in dark jeans and a light gray t-shirt. He sat on the bed, his bare feet stretched out in front of him, and mindlessly flipped through the channels. She took a moment to study him, ignoring the strange situation and trying to appreciate the fact that she’d woken up in bed with one of Starling City’s most eligible bachelors. 

Take that, every jerk who teased me in high school, she thought. He looked over at her and she hoped she hadn’t said that out loud, but all he did was push himself up off the bed. 

“What’s with the smile?” he asked as he uncovered one of the trays, steam curling over a plate of eggs, bacon and toast. 

“It must be nice to get hot service,” she said. Then realized what she said. “Food. Food service. It must be a perk of being in a penthouse. No one else gets their food at the right temperature. I ordered ice cream in a hotel in Gotham once and it was mint chocolate soup by the time it arrived.”

It was Oliver’s turn to smile, a softening of his lips with a slight up-tilt of the corners, as he listened to her nervous ramble. 

“Would you like to start with toast?”

“What I really want is coffee but I barely managed to get the taste of puke out of my mouth and I don’t want to risk it.”

Oliver smiled wider, showing just a hint of his perfect teeth, just as Felicity realized what she’d said. Smooth, Smoak. Smooth. Why don’t you tell the hot guy more about your vomit breath?

Oliver stood next to the bed and waited for Felicity to join him. When she sat down, he draped a napkin over her lap and handed her a piece of toast, unbuttered and very dry, before he recovered the tray. She took a tentative bite, washed it down with a sip of water, and waited to see how her stomach would react — or revolt. 

After a few moments, she took another bite. And another, taking small drinks of tepid water in between, until the entire piece was gone. 

“Feel better?” Oliver asked. 

“Much,” she confirmed and then frowned. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

With a flourish, Oliver removed the silver lid from the other serving tray to reveal cut fruit, granola and yogurt. 

“I didn’t want to break out the good stuff until your stomach had settled,” he explained. “What would you like?”

She eyed the fruit but reached for the first tray with the eggs and bacon. 

“I had a feeling,” Oliver said with a light chuckle.

“Do you want any of the actual good stuff?” she asked. At his head shake, she pushed the bacon aside and scooped the eggs into the remaining slice of toast she’d folded in half.

“It’s kosher.”

“Hmm?” Felicity asked, taking a bite out of her open breakfast sandwich. 

“The bacon. I asked and it’s kosher — lamb, I think.”

Felicity’s eyebrows went up, touched that Oliver thought to ask and assuming she must have discussed religion with him sometime during their brief courtship last night. 

“Well in that case…” she stacked all three pieces atop the eggs and took an even bigger bite of her sandwich. 

He smirked and turned his attention to the bowl of fruit he’d prepared for himself, adding a dollop of yogurt and a sprinkle of granola. 

“Wow,” Felicity said around a mouthful of her breakfast. “That looks…”

“Healthy.”

Felicity grinned. “I was going to say ‘boring,’ but okay.” 

“I’m very particular about what I put into my body,” Oliver said, almost defensively. 

“I’ve noticed.”

Oliver waited for the nervous ramble that usually accompanied her inappropriate comments but it didn’t come. He raised an eyebrow at her in expectation.

“What? I got a really good look at your abs this morning. I’ve never seen an eight-pack before.” She shrugged, polishing off the last bite of her sandwich.

Oliver coughed in surprise at her comment, causing him to slosh coffee down his shirt. 

“Sorry!” Felicity grabbed the spare napkin from her tray. As Oliver dabbed at the caffeinated stain, Felicity noticed the newspaper that had been included with their breakfast service and covered by the napkin. 

Normally she would have paid no mind to the morning paper — she was more of a Google alerts gal — but the picture of Oliver caught her eye which, if they were back home in Starling wouldn’t have been unusual; a Queen family member tended to grace the front page several times a week. 

But this was Vegas. So Oliver wouldn’t be on the cover unless… 

The little bubble they’d enjoyed burst as she took in the headline and photo. 

Following Felicity’s gaze, Oliver craned his neck to look at the paper. 

“A Queen Married by The King,” he read aloud and shrugged. “Not the worst headline pun I’ve ever read.”

Felicity picked up the paper, studying the photo below the ridiculous headline. It was obviously taken last night, as she clung to Oliver’s arm outside the Graceland Wedding Chapel. 

“Who are these guys?” she asked, taking a closer look at the photo. 

“I was in town hosting a Japanese firm Walter has business with. They insisted on being your bridesmaids.”

“I guess I wasn’t the only one making bad decisions last night, then.” She smiled, scrunching her nose to take the sting out of the comment. “So, what do we do about it? We haven’t really talked about it yet.”

Before Oliver could answer, both of their cellphones rang — and chirped — with incoming messages. 

Felicity rushed for her purse as Oliver fished his out of his pocket.

“It’s my mother,” they said in unison and shared resigned looks as they both answered. 

>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<

“Hi, Mom,” Felicity said, ducking into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. However she was going to react, Donna Smoak was a screamer. 

“Oh my god, Felicity. I didn’t know you’d even met Oliver Queen. And now you’re married. My little girl. I’m so happy for you, baby.”

Both the volume and message were a surprise. 

“Uh. Thank you?”

“I just wished you’d told me your plan. I never would have let myself get called back to work if I’d known you were meeting up with your fiancé to get married. But I get keeping it hush-hush so those pushy reporters leave you alone long enough to take care of business. It would have been nice to have been at the wedding but I understand.”

“You are taking this a lot better than I thought you would, Mom,” Felicity said, honestly surprised by how cool her mother was being by this whole debacle.

“It’s too late to be mad now, honey, and, like I said, I understand. You did what you had to do. I know you’re flying back this morning but I hope you have time to bring your husband by before you leave. I’d like to meet my son-in-law at least once before the grand babies arrive.”

>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<

While Felicity disappeared into the bathroom to talk to her mother, Oliver carried his conversation onto the private balcony that overlooked the strip. 

He’d barely greeted his mother before she jumped right into it. 

“Oliver Jonas Queen. You have pulled some questionable stunts but this may actually be the stupidest, most irresponsible thing you have ever done. And that is including the things you and Tommy think I don’t know about.

“Mom —”

“You were supposed to be doing a favor for Walter. You were supposed to be representing Queen Consolidated. You were not supposed to get drunk and marry the first cocktail waitress you came across.”

“It’s not like that, Mom.”

“Oh? So you didn’t take Walter’s clients casino-hopping last night, allowing yourself to become so foolishly drunk and that you got married by an Elvis impersonator?”

“No. Well, yes. But..” 

“Which is it, Oliver?”

“I did take your clients out. And I may have had too much to drink last night. And I did get married…”

“Where’s the no, then?”

“Felicity isn’t a cocktail waitress. She’s actually a QC employee.”

There was a pause as Moira processed the HR nightmare. “That’s not much better, Oliver,” she said with a sigh. 

“It’s a lot better, Mom.” he said, lowering his voice and stepping back into the room as Felicity emerged from the bathroom, her phone still in hand as she made eye contact with him. “Felicity isn’t like the other women I’ve been with. She’s smart and driven. She works in the QC technology department. She’s brilliant. And kind. And funny. She’s actually the first friend I made since coming back…”

“Oh, Oliver,” his mother and Felicity said softly at the same time. 

“I know this is…complicated,” he continued, addressing Felicity as well as his mother, his eyes locked with his wife’s wide ones. “But I don’t think I regret it.”

“Oliver,” his mother said again, this time as a resigned sigh which Felicity heard as he’d put her on speaker phone. “I’ve spoken to your pilot. The jet will leave in one hour and I expect you and Felicity to be on it. Mr. Diggle will meet you at the airport and bring you directly here and we will sort all of this.”

Felicity shook her head and held up two fingers and then pointed at her phone. 

“We actually need two hours, Mom. We have to stop and see Felicity’s mom before we go,” he said, catching her drift. 

There was another pause. “Fine, Oliver. Two hours and then straight here. Your sister will be home by then. We’ll have lunch and then talk this out.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“And Oliver? I love you. Please know that. We’ll figure everything else out.”

“I know, Mom. See you soon.”


End file.
